Humbert

d.1061. Cardinal bishop of Silva Candida. A Burgundian by birth, he became a monk at the monastery of Moyenmoutier, where he showed himself to be a good scholar and keen reformer. Leo IX called him to Rome in 1049 and a year later made him cardinal bishop. In this position he was a principal adviser to Leo IX, Victor II, and Stephen IX with regard to the reform of the church and relations with the East. He strongly denounced simony in Libri tres adversus Simoniacos. At the time of the Great Schism* he was a leading member of the mission which Leo IX sent to Byzantium to the patriarch, Michael Cerularius, in 1054. Humbert is to be classed with Peter Damian* as a leading reformer of the eleventh century.